Henry The Vacuum
by HenryHoover222
Summary: The adventures of Henry, a young but promising vacuum cleaner who works on floor three.


The sun broke over the horizon in Vacuum land and flooded all of the land in beautiful light. Just a crack of this sun broke through the side of the door to Henry's cupboard and shone right in the little Vacuum's eye. "Oh Lummy, another busy day ahead" said Henry to himself. He got up and brushed his pipe and washed his filter. He oiled his wheels and made sure his power cable was coiled tight. Just then the Vacuum -phone rang on the wall of Henry's cupboard. Henry stumbled over to answer it. "Hello?" he said. "Henry this is Captain McHaddon of the Vacuum labor ministry. We have an argent job for you on the third floor, looks like a plant up there had shed some leaves, they're all over the carpet and it's a total mess. We need to get a Vacuum up there right now." Henry rolled his eyes up at the ceiling, "Ok boss, I won't let you down," he said. "Good boy," said Captain McHaddon, "I know we're stretched at the moment but the cleanliness of this entire office building relies on us!" McHaddon was an old and highly decorated Vacuum who drove the men hard but had their ultimate respect. The line cut off and Henry yawned in the silence, "Time to clean" he sighed. Down in the Vacuum supplies bay, the engineer Vacuums were busy at work preparing the equipment for that day, Henry rolled down the central aisle waving at some of the guys he knew as he passed. "I hope I don't end up like these old timers" thought Henry as he went. The Vacuum Supplies Bay was staffed by older Vacuums who were no longer fit for front line cleaning duties so had been assigned work here by the Vacuum Labor Ministry. They were a bunch of wise-guys but they worked hard repairing old equipment and preparing Vacuum attachments ready for deployment. In charge of the bay was Jenkins, who Henry found at the far end of the room studying some documents. "You're late" said Jenkins without looking up. "And you're ugly, but what are we gonna do about it?" Henry shot back at him. Jenkins and Henry were old friends. Jenkins, now retired from front line duty, had been Captain of Henry's floor when Henry was a mere boy. The old Vacuum looked up from his papers and smiled "You look a total mess" he said. Henry smiled back.

"So what can we do for you?" asked Jenkins as he and Henry rolled down the central aisle together. "Got some fallen leaves up on floor three, Captain McHaddon put me on it just now," said Henry.

"Ha! That old guy still bossing you around is he?" laughed Jenkins.

"As ever" said Henry. Jenkins stopped at one of the test bays and began intently watching a group of white coated Vacuum s working busily. "I'd cover your intakes if I were you," said Jenkins. Henry turned to watch a hatch opening above the test bay and a small bag dropping down on a robotic arm, suddenly the bag exploded and white powder filled the air, almost as soon as this had happened, a trap door shot open and up came what looked like a machine gun emplacement, manned by one of the white coated Vacuums. "Engage!" shouted the operator, and a deafening noise started up. Within seconds the white powder started flowing into the nozzle of the gun and ten seconds later it was all gone. The engineers turned to look at Jenkins for approval and he gave a slight nod.

"TXV-9 prototype" said Jenkins to Henry as they turned and continued down the aisle. "It still needs some work but it can get a kilogram of rough powder off a carpeted floor in ten seconds." Henry mouthed a 'wow' in approval. "Of course it's still in the test bed phase, but we're hoping to deploy it as a standard attachment within two years. Can you imagine the efficiency of our front line Vacuums if each one of them had a TXV-9 at their side?"

"I think that would just about change the course of Vacuum History sir!" said Henry. "You may be right" said Jenkins, "now come Henry, let's get you kitted out."

"Comms check 20223-Henry"

"20223 I hear you loud and clear"

"That you Sally?"

"Sure is sweetie pie."

"I'd know that sweet voice anywhere," said Henry, from inside service elevator B, as he rode the long journey up to floor three. He went through the same routine that he always went through before an operation, humming the same song he'd learnt all those years before at Vacuum Basic Training:

 _Hose on tight?_

 _Switch to the right?_

 _Got enough light if you're working at night?_

 _If your Vents aint open_

 _Then You better be hopin'_

 _That another Vacuum brother is more ready for the fight!_

It was a childish song, but every vacuum still sung it before going 'on the floor.' It had become almost a superstition if not a law, and even the toughest, meanest old WetVacs out there could be heard mumbling it before they went out. Sally crackled in over the radio, "We've got you down for a fallen leaves job on floor three, right Henry?"

"Something like that," said Henry nonchalantly. He raised up his hose and clicked open the air flow on the assigned attachment, a standard EX6 Large Bore. It was an old piece of kit but reliable as hell. His thoughts went back to the device Jenkins had shown him earlier in the Vacuum supplies bay. 'What I wouldn't give for one of those bad boys' he thought to himself. The elevator ground to a halt at level three and the doors swept open, Henry rolled out and spoke into his radio "20223 on the floor."

"Take care out there sweetie pie" Sally's voice came back.

A short roll down corridor 3C and into a break room at the end and there was the jobsite. "What a mess" said Henry to himself. An office plant had shed fifteen to twenty leaves in a small pile on the floor. "Ok Sally, 20223 on site, I've got about two dozen leaves on synthetic carpet, standard level three stuff, permission to proceed."

"Go ahead 20223, you have clearance to hook in at wall point 3-63, awaiting your conformation". Henry rolled over to the wall and backed up against 3-63. He extended his power cable and hooked in. He felt the electricity surge into his systems and fill his whole casing with a soft buzz 'ten thousand hook ups and It still gets me like the first time' he thought to himself, smiling. "20223 hooked in, everything looks normal"

"Ok 20223, permission to roll away."

Henry began to slowly move away from the wall socket and towards the plant. He felt his cable extend out as his head plate began to spin, spooling out the life giving cable onto the carpet behind him. He stopped halfway to the plant and radioed in, "20223 rolled out and ready."

"20223 power up" came the reply.

Every Vacuum will tell you the story of their first power up. For most it came in the second year of basic when the young cadets would go on a live exercise for the first time. There, the Sergeant Vacuums would take the young recruits through the steps and help them hook in to one of the low power practice sockets in the training yard. Nobody could tell you about the moments the electricity first hits them, some claim they can but they're usually dismissed as liars. The reality is that it is such an intense experience that it leaves no memory. For some it is all too much and their first power up is their last, but for the successful, the experience leaves a smile on their face that lasts a lifetime, the same smile that was on Henry's face right now as he extended his hose and edged forward towards the fallen leaves. "20223 engaging," shouted Henry above the roar of his motor.

"Copy 20223, go safe sweetie pie"

Exhausted, Henry rode the elevator back down to the basement. The whir of his motor still rang in his ears. It had been a simple job but one of the leaves had jammed in his hose towards the end and caused a surge. However much training a vacuum received, a surge could still be unnerving. The feeling of the hose flow stopping abruptly and the emergency intake opening was not something you got used to, not ever. It was only through experience that a veteran vacuum could pause, keep calm and clear the blockage without panicking and making the situation worse. There had been some terrible stories of young recruits freezing during a surge and their motors running dangerously hot, or worse, burning out. A burnt out motor was a vacuum's worst nightmare, invariably meaning months or even years in the maintenance bay where Jenkins and his engineers would slowly rehabilitate and repair. But whatever the skilled engineers could do physically, there was little they could do to repair the mental damage that a burnout victim suffered. For some, they never recovered, and every Vacuum had heard stories about the 'Black Room' where these vacuums were sent. Officially they were 'Awaiting Repair scheduling,' but everybody knew that not a single vacuum that entered that room ever came out. Numerous were the stories of the horrors of the Black Room. Missing wheels and hoses, busted head plates and exposed electrics, switches dangling horrifically on their wires and shredded filters littering the floor. There was a guy in the supplies bay who claimed he had been to the Black Room and made it out again, but nobody really believed him. It was dark when Henry got back to the basement floor. He rolled down to the Vacuum Supplies Bay and pushed open the doors. Most of the lights were off expect for at the far end of the long room where Chief Engineer Jenkins was hunched over his desk. He didn't look up from his work but held up his hose to Henry in greeting and mumbled something. Henry docked his attachment on the returns rack, popped his lid and dumped his bag and filter onto the inspection bench. "Anyone still here?" he called to Jenkins.

"Nah they've all gone home, which is where I should be. Give me a minute and I'll sort you out myself." The VSB was a sad place when it was empty. Without the scurrying white coated vacuums and the buzz and bleep of machinery it had an almost ghostly feel. Jenkins' desk lamp at the far end threw long shadows and sadness over everything. "Working late Chief?" Said Henry.

"As ever" Jenkins replied as he put a pen down. "You know Henry, sometimes I wonder why we do it" said Jenkins as he came up the isle towards Henry. "I mean the Vacuum Supplies Bay. We pour all this money, all this time into research and then the Ministry never sign anything off. In ten years they've only green lighted three projects. And one of those they cancelled a month after we started it! Where's your bag?" Henry pointed to the bench. "Every month I ask them at the ministry whether we should slow it down a bit, reduce the workload, let a few guys go, but they want the opposite, more research, more projects, more Vacuums working." Jenkins took a sample card and peeled off the film, sticking it down into the bag he rummaged around then pulled it back out, a few flakes of dead leaf stuck to it. "Fascinating," said Jenkins.

"Really?' asked Henry

"Not at all," returned Jenkins, "not to me anyway, but I'm sure it will be to some nerd at the ministry." He placed the sample card in labeled bag and tossed it aside, then reached for a scanner and ran it over Henry's filter. The scanner remained at a constant low tone as it went up and down the filter, "You saw the TVX-9 we were testing earlier right?" Henry nodded. "There's been a ministry vacuum down here every day the past three months asking questions about that thing. When's it ready? How much have you spent? How many guys are on the project?" Jenkins shut off the scanner and docked it in its cradle. "I'm happy to answer those questions and I love the project but I know sure as a broken wheel that as soon as it's ready they'll tell us to sit on it, same as they have with every other breakthrough we make. You're good to go kid." Henry popped his head plate and returned his bag and filter. "Aaah that feels good" he said as he replaced his lid. "Nothing beats an empty bag." Jenkins took the sample bag and wrote on it in marker pen, then opened a drawer near the back wall and threw it in. He rolled back to where Henry was adjusting his hose and cable, took a clip board from a drawer in the bench and began to write out a form. In this light Jenkins looked a lot older than he usually did, perhaps he only looked as old as he was. He was a battered old vacuum that's for sure, heavy scratches in his face and top plate told tales of years on the floor. His hose was patched in two places, and his plug was slightly different color to what it should have been for his model. Henry had heard he lost the original in a Cord-out on floor five. He shuddered now just thinking about it. After a Burn-out, a Cord-out was a vacuum's biggest fear, they had spent months in basic training hooking into practice sockets and rolling out slowly to their maximum cord length. Procedure demanded that a vacuum keep twelve inches of power cord in reserve at all times and most of them did for the first few years, but as complacency crept in, the more experienced vacuums would routinely break that rule. Tales abounded of the dreaded feel of the cable rising up taut behind a vacuum as his reserve cable expired. For the lucky ones it meant a rapid power down and a disciplinary hearing at the ministry. For the unlucky ones, a cord-out was their fate, total severance at either the plug end or, much worse, at the spool end. Unusually, Jenkins has suffered a cord-out and then come back stronger, rising through the ranks to Floor 6 Captain, where Henry had served under him, and then eventually being made Chief Engineer. Jenkins had received a number of decorations, crowned by a Ministry Service Medal for his actions during a glass breakage on level six that had already badly injured another Vacuum. He had cleared the glass and then dragged the casualty (who had a severely torn filter) back to the elevator. Although he didn't work on the floor any more, Jenkins was a legend and had become a father figure to many young vacuums throughout his long career. Here in the bay late at night, Henry thought Jenkins cut a sad figure for a Vacuum that had known such glory. Hunched over the bench and scribbling on a form, he looked more like a lowly clerk than a decorated Hero. "Well we're done here kid," said Jenkins, stamping the form and placing it in a tray to the side of the bench. "I suggest you get yourself back to your cupboard and get some sleep, from what I've heard at the ministry there's a storm coming tomorrow." Henry smiled and saluted with his hose.

"Goodnight Sir," said Henry, turning to leave.

"Goodnight Kid" mumbled Jenkins as he rolled back down to his desk in the far shadows.


End file.
